Drug Pricing and Policy This Week: Everyone’s Talking About International Reference Pricing and 340B
Hello and welcome to Cost Curve Weekend, where I flag items from the daily Cost Curve email newsletter that you may have missed in all of the turmoil of the week. Links come from the daily version of the newsletter, which you can sign up for here.
Three things you might have missed in the week just passed:
International Referencing Pricing Is Back. A right-leaning think tank put out a white paper detailing all of the ways that the Trump administration could stick it to “global freeriders,” by forcing ex-U.S. prices up and U.S. prices down. I wrote on Friday of my skepticism around both the feasibility and the promised lack of impact on innovation. But there’s no question people are talking.
Optum Rx Is On Its Best Behavior. The PBM said that it would scale back the prior auth madness and pay pharmacies more for brand-name drugs. There is an argument to be had about what percentage of all of this is just PR, but -- benefit of the doubt! -- at least Optum recognizes where the problems lie.
340B Makes the Wall Street Journal. There are two types of people: (1) Health care insiders who have spent all week talking about this Joseph W. WSJ piece on a particularly clever form of 340B abuse, and (2) Normies who aren’t locked into the 340B story. Group (2) is still a lot bigger than ground (1), but that’s beginning to change.
Two things I’m looking forward to in the week to come:
Chewing the Fat. I’ll be in NYC for BMO’s obesity summit on Tuesday. I’m speaking, but I suspect that I’ll be one getting an education. So many facets here.
Keeping Busy at White Oak. There are some FDA PDUFA dates rolling around next week. Some folks are looking for reassurance that an agency in turmoil can meet deadlines. Me? I’m mostly curious about whether there will be launch pricing news.
One link you really ought to click:
No one can tell a story like Michael Lewis (Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, etc.). And I don’t think anyone has ever quite told a story about a mid-level bureaucrat at the FDA like the one he published in the Washington Post last week. It’s chock full of unsung heroes, the magic of serendipity, a brain-eating amoeba, all with a (mostly) happy ending.
Pharmacist | Gene & Cell Therapy | Drug Policy
6moFirst, I agree that this type of activity is (probably) abuse of 340B. As you observe, the PBM is likely taking a nice cut, and this is probably benefitting entities other than those who the program is intended to help. But here’s a fact to chew on. In the U.S., we spend $4.9T on healthcare. The 340B program is $66B (1.3%). This is not the cause or solution to the U.S.’ healthcare spending problem, even if you assume all of it is waste (which I know you don’t).
Thanks for sharing the trends of this past week Brian Reid